Aid advocates are angry the government wants to use millions in foreign aid to accommodate asylum seekers.

UP TO 30,000 asylum seekers could make the dangerous journey to Australia next year, almost doubling arrivals this year, one of the members of the expert panel on asylum seekers says.

The prediction came yesterday as the federal government admitted hundreds of millions of extra dollars would be slashed from the foreign aid budget under secret plans to help get its battered budget back in the black.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr said another $375 million would be diverted from the foreign aid budget to help pay for the ballooning costs of food and housing for asylum seekers being processed in Australia.

The government had already cut $2.9 billion in aid spending in the May budget over the next four years, delaying its previous target by one year.

The three panel members who helped draw up Labor's new asylum seeker policy were yesterday quizzed by a parliamentary committee probing the issue.

But despite Immigration Minister Chris Bowen saying people could wait five years in offshore detention under a "no-advantage test", Mr Houston said he did not know where that figure had come from. "I never ever spoke about five years," he said.

Meanwhile, on the government's budget problems, Senator Carr initially would not say whether the money was being diverted. But he later confirmed that $375 million was going to be diverted from foreign aid programs to pay for food and housing for asylum seekers being processed in Australia.

Senator Carr yesterday unveiled a multi-million dollar plan to establish a spy network in Sri Lanka to catch people smugglers.

He argued the money was still being spent on aid measures for foreign people.

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